A common design pattern I've used is using a horizontal bar chart to visualize numeric data about a series, and a click through drilldown that discloses a pane with more detailed information about the item that was clicked.

How would you design a similar interaction, but with categorized (two stages) of data? The example below (show a drilldown on domains, and then URL endpoints) is my attempt to both demonstrate the problem and show some potential solutions. The mockups below would show some form of animated transition as a potential user would click from the left most to right most screen... is there a better way? A visualization or interaction pattern I'm not thinking of perhaps?

I like the bottom one more than the top one. It makes the relation between first and seconds choice a lot more obvious and presumably can stay in place without hiding the summary or making it smaller.
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Marjan VenemaNov 26 '12 at 7:09

1 Answer
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You may consider icicle charts, or their complementary form known as sunburst partitions. There are many different hierarchical data visualization techniques, some less intuitive than others. Depending on your data set this may be overkill, but something worth exploring nonetheless.

Some great ideas, thanks CJ! I think both of those visualization techniques are beautiful, but as you mentioned a little much for a simple data set... it did however remind me that we could represent the bars as multi-segmented bars for each domain, a click on the domain could split out the segments vertically.
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Etan LightstoneNov 26 '12 at 19:24